It's not known if Avery filed any papers with the NHL and the NHL Player's Association had no comment.

Avery played only 15 games this season for the Rangers after a good training camp. The team waived him while he was with the team in Sweden preparing for the regular season overseas.

"I don't want to jam up Sean here— I think we have better players than Sean Avery, plain and simple," Rangers head coach John Tortorella said on October 4.

The Rangers put Avery on re-entry waivers on Halloween and he returned to the Rangers after fans at Madison Square Garden had been chanting for his return.

Avery played only 15 games— with three goals and 21 penalty minutes— before he and Tortorella clashed again. The team reassigned Avery to the Connecticut Whale on Dec. 30— right before the Winter Classic Game against the Philadelphia Flyers.

He last played for the Whale on Jan. 27 and was not eligible for the AHL postseason.

The troublesome Avery is in the final year of a four-year, $15.5 million contract he signed with the Dallas Stars in 2008.

He played 580 games through parts of 10 seasons with the Rangers, Stars, Kings and Red Wings— scoring 90 goals with 157 assists and accruing 1,533 penalty minutes.

The 31-year-old Avery was a character both on and off the ice. His chippy style of play on the ice was reviled by opponents and the NHL alike, but loved by the hometown fans.

Outside the rink, he dated celebrities and once interned at the fashion magazine Vogue during the summer of 2008.

Later, Avery's agent Pat Morris told the New York Post that his client intends to retire at the end of the year and pursue a career with an advertising agency.

"I guess that was my retirement press conference," Avery told the New York Post. "I couldn't be happier about the situation."